Goal II: Systems and Services

Systems and Services asks whether I can identify the information needs of diverse communities, evaluate and select the right resources and systems to meet those needs, and use appropriate technology to deliver information services. Core courses in the MLIS program are in green font.

II.a — Identify and analyze diverse information needs of individuals and communities

In LIS 5020 (Foundations of LIS), I analyzed how a public library's job and career services enacted professional values of equity and inclusive economic advancement for an immigrant community, grounding the observation in published research.

View artifact: Service/Values Paper →

Also in LIS 6661 (Government Documents), I used the Census Business Builder to extract multi-year business and economic indicators for a specific community, working around a real data-quality gap by pulling values from visualizations when tabular data wasn't available.

View artifact: Retrieval Exercise 4 →

II.b — Evaluate and select print and digital information resources and systems to meet user needs

In LIS 6603 (Basic Information Sources & Services), I developed a Mid-Century Modern Architecture LibGuide. I took this as an opportunity to go to the USF Tampa Campus Library to see how materials were organized, and to look at print material in person - given the visual nature of this content. It was interesting to learn that the materials for this topic are housed both in Library of Congress Class N (Fine Arts), and Class T (Technology). Mid-Century Modern Architecture is a large topic, such that I chose to narrow the focus to residential architecture. The process of building the LibGuide helped me learn about curation of resources and how to present them in a way that a person new to a topic could enjoy and understand.

In LIS 6661 (Government Documents), I traced the legislative history of a public law using both ProQuest Congressional and GovInfo, directly comparing their effectiveness and concluding which one served the task better.

View artifact: Retrieval Exercise 1 →

II.c — Understand and use appropriate information technology for information services

In LIS 6661 (Government Documents), I cross-referenced three geospatial tools — USGS TopoView, Census TigerWeb, and HometownLocator — to trace historical topographic maps of the same address across changing map eras, comparing scale and resolution differences between systems.

View artifact: Retrieval Exercise 3 →

In LIS 5526 (Teaching Information Literacy), I deliberately chose Qualtrics over Canvas for a training assessment because of its item-type flexibility, a concrete technology decision tied to instructional design.

View artifact: Lesson Assessment →